Yesterday, Big came back home in tears. I was expecting her to tell me about something trivial, but after hearing about what she had been dealing with all day enraged me.
To keep a long story short and a private situation relatively private, she has an ex who is exhibiting psychopathic behaviour. This person is contacting people in her private life, spreading lies about her, and trying to exact revenge on Big for the end of a relationship that had already been terminated months prior. This person has said, in their own words, that they will turn everyone in Big’s life against her so that no one would ever believe her ever again.
Jesus Christ on a cob.
The thing that really did it for me was when Big told me she started questioning her own reality. She was accused of saying something horrifically mean to a friend, something that I immediately knew didn’t come from the mouth of my kid, but because of what’s happening, she just couldn’t be 100% sure.
Wait, hold the phones. This is something that I am dealing with in my own private life right now, as an adult. And I can barely handle it myself. There are days where I feel like I am actually going crazy, where I sort through screenshots and archives to try to piece together evidence that I am not actually insane, that I have actually lived the events that I claim to have lived. In my most vulnerable of times I have wished for someone to come in, take my word at face value and tell my psychopathic ex to shut the fuck up and leave me alone.
And then it hit me, this is the gift that I can give to my child. In the end, that’s what we did. My partner and I called the person up and told them to leave Big alone.
I want my kids to know that their home is a sanctuary for them, forever. That no matter what happens, no matter how big their fuck up is, that they can turn to me for unconditional support. That they can call me at 3am and know that I will be there, no questions asked, literally. That if they don’t feel good being somewhere, I will walk all day and all night if that’s what it takes, to take them away and bring them back to safety. And hopefully one day, if they ever decide to have their own children, to do the same for them.
Image: © Håkan Vargas/via WildSweden
The Otterist 